1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an automatic system for providing any one of a plurality of preselectable mixtures of different kinds of ammunition from a plurality of supplies to a conveyor system. The conveyor system, in turn, may be used to supply such ammunition to the ammunition storage system in an armament system.
2. Prior Art
Most high rate of fire guns, such as are shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,380,343, issued Apr. 30, 1968 to R. E. Chiabrandy et al, utilize rounds of ammunition without links which are fed to the feeder of the gun by an endless conveyor such as is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,429,221, issued Feb. 25, 1969 to R. G. Kirkpatrick, from a storage system, such as is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,004,490, issued Jan. 25, 1977 to J. Dix et al. To provide quick aircraft loading turnaround time, the loading of the rounds into the storage system may use a bulk loader system, such as is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,696,704, issued Oct. 10, 1972 to L. F. Backus et al. This bulk loader system may be replenished by a replenisher, such as is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,292,878, issued Oct. 6, 1981 to G. D. Brooks et al.
As shown in Brooks et al, the bulk ammunition is available in two configurations: (1) Ammunition incorporating cardboard dunnage both in sheet form to separate the rounds from all sides of the container and in the form of tubes which respectively encase each individual projectile, with each round alternately oriented. (2) Loose bulk ammunition, without cardboard, as unfired rounds and cleared rounds from previous missions.
For many missions a mixture of different types of rounds of ammunition may be desired. An example might be: two armor piercing incendiary, two antipersonnel, one tracer. Different missions may require different mixtures.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a system for automatically providing, seriatim, any selected one of a plurality of different mixtures of types of ammunition to a conveyor.
A feature of this invention is an ammunition sorting system including a plurality of storage means each adapted to releasably store a different type of ammunition, and a conveyor system including in sequence a plurality of rungs, each rung having two alternative dispositions, one wherein said rung provides a pocket in the conveyor adapted to receive therein a round of ammunition from a storage means, the other wherein said rung precludes entry of a round into such pocket, and means for controlling the disposition of each rung as it passes each of said storage means.